Now that I’ve had a couple of days to reflect back on the launch, I thought it might be valuable to share what I learned as it may help other authors who also want to launch their books.

While there were many little things I learned and experienced during the launch, here are the five main lessons worth sharing.

Have a specific goal for your book launch. My goal was for my book to become a #1 best-selling book again after the successful launch of my previous book, Building High-Performing Teams, which become a #1 bestseller on Amazon. All my activities before and during the launch had to be aligned with achieving my goal.

On the second day of the launch, my book was #2 and #3 on two of the bestseller lists. I could have settled for that as reaching #2 and #3 is very impressive in itself. However, my goal was to reach #1 so that drove me to continue promoting the book until the goal was achieved.

Trust your preparation. While the actual launch went for three days, preparation for it began several weeks ago. I created a timeline for what needed to happen before, during and after the book launch. I also created pre-release content that aligned with the content in the book plus I created promotional material that could be used by my promotional partners and friends. The more preparation that is done prior to the launch, the easier it becomes during the launch.

Don’t go at it alone. This cannot be stated enough. Having a team and people you trust to help you get the word out during the launch is so important. I stated reaching out to friends, colleagues and acquaintances well before the launch and asked if they’d be willing to support me during the launch.

Most people said yes and surprisingly, some people did not respond with either a yes or a no. Therefore reach out to as many people as you can and expect some people to say no, which is totally okay. I have to say that the book would not have done as well if it weren’t for all my promotional partners. Having a celebrity endorse my book made a huge difference plus it gave my book additional credibility.

Respond to feedback during the launch The great thing about launching a book on Amazon is that you can monitor and track your progress. Amazon updates it bestseller lists very hour. That really helps as you’ll be able to work out the difference your book sales are having on the book’s bestseller rankings. During this launch, I documented the book’s rankings and sales almost every hour. Having those statistics will help me with future book launches.

Stay patient and relax as best as you can. While it is very exciting to launch a book, it is tremendously stressful and exhausting. Being in Australia, I’m almost a full day ahead of North America and many of my promoters were a day behind me.

Therefore on the second and third days of the launch, I only got four hours sleep each night. During this launch, I noticed how my emotions went up and down especially when my book was on #2 and #3 for quite a few hours.

There was a point where I questioned if I had done all I could to get the book to #1 on the bestseller list. I’m happy to say that it all worked out in the end, thanks to the collective effort of my team and promotional partners.

One thing I do know is that I don’t know how Amazon decides to rank books on different bestseller lists. When you first upload a book to Amazon, they only allow you to select two categories for your books, which ends up being the bestseller list you book will be ranked on.

My book ended up being #1 on three different bestseller lists, which was a great surprise. For all I know, it is based on how many copies the book has sold.

Either way, I am very happy with the outcome of this launch and I’m very grateful to everyone who bought a copy and to everyone who helped me promote my book. THANK YOU so much!

Question: If you’re planning to launch a book soon, what could benefit you from what I shared about my book launch?